Rick Santorum on Wednesday showed no signs of backing down from his provocative statements about President Obama and religion, accusing the president of working to undermine the country’s “Judeo-Christian values” through his implementation of health-care reform and other policies.

“Essentially, we are going to have to hold together on some set of moral codes and principles,” Santorum said at the Sabbar Shrine in downtown Tucson, speaking before an enthusiastic tea party crowd of about 500 people ahead of an evening CNN debate.

“And we’re seeing very evidently what the president’s moral codes and principles are about. We see a president who is systematically trying to crush the traditional Judeo-Christian values of America. We saw it with Obamacare and the implementation of Obamacare, where his values are going to be imposed on a church’s values.”